THE sprinter Christophe Lemaitre is a remarkable young man. He's French, he's fast – inside ten seconds for 100 metres in fact – and, by the end of tonight, he might even be the European champion.

He's also white.

Now before you feel compelled to jump on to the liberal bandwagon and peddle the views of those who in recent weeks have condemned media coverage of Lemaitre's achievements as being racist, I urge you to read on first.

Because the evidence suggests that condemnation of studies of ethnicity where sprinting is concerned are, as the radio phone-in contributor might put it, "political correctness gone mad."

When Lemaitre ran 9.98sec at last month's French championships he became the latest man to have broken the ten-second barrier. The lists now runs to more than 50.

Lemaitre's claim to fame, though, is that he's the only white man on the list.

Thirty years ago, Allan Wells won the Olympic 100m title in Moscow. His winning time was 10.25sec and he was the first Briton to have won the Olympic 100m title since Harold Abrahams 56 years earlier, the story that had been the inspiration for the film Chariots of Fire.

More significantly, though, Wells is the last white man to have won an Olympic 100m title. And no one has come close since. In fact, no white man has reached any of the subsequent Olympic 100m finals.

All of the 56 finalists in the last seven Olympic men's 100m finals have been of West African origin.

The likelihood of that based on population numbers alone – blacks with ancestral roots in that region represent eight per cent of the world's population – is something like 0.00000000000000000000000001 per cent.

Forgive me if I'm a few noughts out. But the point is made and you should be getting the message. It's a staggering statistic.

Remarkably, Lemaitre's run in 9.98sec has elevated him to seventh in the current world rankings. The next man of European origin is the German Tobias Unger, who is 34th with a best time this year of 10.14sec.

Even allowing for further development in Lemaitre's already stunning achievements, it's safe to say that the prospects of Adolf Hitler's vision of a supreme white race coming to fruition in time for the London Olympics are somewhere between very slim and nil.

It's a far from controversial statement; and not one that any reasonable person will dispute. The evidence is clear. As broader brush conclusion as it may sound, white sprinters are indeed inferior to their black counterparts.

But then that's the easy bit. Where we have to tread rather more carefully, though, is in trying to determine and explain the reasons why.

It's a sensitive topic where few authors are brave or foolish enough to tread.

But someone who has is the American Jon Entine who, for the purposes of the record, is white.

He's got an impressive curriculum vitae which includes 20 years spent as a senior news producer for the American networks ABC, CBS and NBC.

Nine years after Wells' triumph in Moscow he wrote and produced the award winning documentary "Black Athletes: Fact and Fiction" which led on to a best-selling book, "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We are Afraid to Talk About It".

As one newspaper columnist wrote of the television programme, "It was an hour spent mentioning the unmentionable".

Entine blew away the theory that blacks do well in sport out of a sense of desperation because it offers the shortest route out of the ghetto.

I suspect Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, arguably the two most famous sportsmen of the last 20 years, would agree with that. Both came from stable, middle-class backgrounds.

The Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey, who won the 1996 Olympic 100m title, is another who can't be accused of having sprinted his way out of the dole queue. He owned a home and a Porsche before trading in his career as a stockbroker to pursue his Olympic dream.

As Entine puts it: "The classic argument that blacks succeed in sports to escape poverty is less and less plausible and increasingly racist every day."

In fact, if there are socio-economic factors involved in the growing domination of men of West African origin in the sprint ranks, then it is that we now live in what is largely a fairer and more equal world.

In the United States, the best Olympic sportsmen have nearly all come from the collegiate system. Seventy years ago, there weren't that many black Americans who went to university. Nowadays the opportunities are far greater.

What's more, talented black sprinters from all over the world, including many from west African countries, are furthering their athletics and academic careers at US colleges.

So having leveled off the socio-economic playing field, or running track, what are we left with? Well, to some I'm sure it is slightly unpalatable but the evidence suggests it is the essential truth; there are fundamental anatomical differences between men of west African origin which give them a significant leg up when it comes to running fast.

This is supported by the American physical anthropologist, Lindsay Carter. He says: "From a biomechanical perspective, the answer is 'yes,' race and ethnicity do matter."

Men of west African origin generally have most of the following physical characteristics, many of which assist sprinting:

relatively less fat on arms and legs and proportionately more lean body and muscle mass. They are broader-shouldered and have larger quadriceps (thigh muscles) which are so important in generating sprinting power

a higher centre of gravity, narrower hips, and lighter calves; faster patellar (knee) tendon reflex;

small but significantly higher levels of plasma testosterone which is anabolic and contributes to greater muscle mass, lower fat, and the ability to perform at a higher level of intensity with faster recovery;

a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes which can translate into more explosive energy.

None of the above are, of course, a guarantee of sprinting success. Good fortune and the indefinable X-factor that separates the great from the good are other key ingredients.

That said, it seems inevitable that the old adage about a good big 'un always beating a good little 'un could equally be transposed to matters of ethnicity in a sprint race.